The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Poet

This essay was really enlightening for me.  We know Emerson more as a philosopher, than a poet or a critic, but he was the voice for poetry during his lifetime - the inspiration, mentor and friend of Walt Whitman and this long treatise on poetry delves deeply in to the perspective he has for this form of writing.  He writes, “With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide in as an inspiration.”

Then he goes on to look at poetry in his own analytic way and suggests that “Every word was once a poem.”  This is fascinating because he sees the power in each word and how that power can shape a picture or image for the reader, “The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it."

I have been working to review poetry for Lake Superior magazine's next issue and this has caused me to not just read poetry, but to think about it.  I found myself thinking about the concept of "to turn a phrase" and thinking instead that poetry phrases the turns in our perception.

In the following paragraph Emerson goes further in this analysis and I am going to take the liberty to underline phrases that really spoke to me.  “The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses.  For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer.  The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.  Language is fossil poetry.”

In this reflection the poet is put in the unenviable position of needing to let their own lives move to the background and let life as it surrounds them take over the pen. “So the poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low, that the common influences should delight him.  His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water.  That spirit which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump, and half-embedded stone, on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and such as are of simple taste.”

Finally we begin to see that poetry in its purest form and within the essay Emerson bemoans how few poets are really writing the highest level of poem.  “Art is the path of the creator to his work.”  The creator is not a god, but the poet. “He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him.  The poet pours out verses in every solitude.  Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful.  That charms him.  He would say nothing else, but such things.  In our way of talking, we say, ‘That is yours, this is mine..."

and then we come to the crux of this dialogue.  The product of the poet, the essence of the poem is moving and inspiring, but in fact comes from beyond the writer - "but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is a strange and beautiful thing to him as to you…”

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

I have always been fascinated by Hemingway, as have many people.  He is an Icon of American literature and an enemy of adjectives every where.  His sparse writing form is as unique as Shakespeare's rhyme and meter.  He carved out a form that reflected the man and in many ways The Sun Also Rises is also a strong reflection of the man (as is the Old Man and the Sea and many others)

. The following was posted by Garrison Keillor today, so it seems appropriate to post my review of  The Sun Also Rises, which was one of my summer reads. Today, July 21,  is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway , born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899). He started his writing life as a journalist, but when he was in Paris after World War I, working as a foreign correspondent for theToronto Star, he was encouraged to take a more literary turn by other American writers like Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. His first collection of short stories, In Our Time, was published in 1925. Both U.S. presidential candidates of 2008 cited Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) as one of their favorite books. It's about an American teacher, Robert Jordan, who volunteers to go fight in the Spanish Civil War and, after being wounded in battle, contemplates shooting himself to end the pain. But when the enemy comes into sight, Jordan delays their approach so that his own comrades can escape to safety. And then he dies. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls: "The young man, whose name was Robert Jordan, was extremely hungry and he was worried. He was often hungry but he was not usually worried because he did not give any importance to what happened to himself and he knew from experience how simple it was to move behind the enemy lines in all this country. It was as simple to move behind them as it was to cross through them, if you had a good guide. It was only giving importance to what happened to you if you were caught that made it difficult; that and deciding whom to trust. You had to trust the people you worked with completely or not at all, and you had to make decisions about the trusting. He was not worried about any of that. But there were other things."

In this book we are brought to the same decadent Paris that we find in F Scott Fitzgerald's writing, but it is different for many reasons .  First Hemingway does not involve his wives in this writing.  His character - Jake - is a loner and lonely.  An amateur psychologist might read in to the life of this character the loneliness that ultimate brought Hemingway to commit suicide.

This is a group of people bonded by their lifestyles and location, but in fact as we go through the story we find that the friendships are not based on liking one another.  In fact, they can be quite cruel about the other associates and they seem to find more to like in the bottles of liquor, the quest for a meaningful relationship - which means going after each new possibility, and the blood and chaos of Pamplona and the bulls.

Spain and France are the locals and we are often treated to insights about their countryside, but the strength of the story is about the people.  Each expresses anger and want in different ways depending upon their inebriation.  And the glue to the group is actually a woman - Brett, who we are led to believe is extremely desirable.  Her problem is that men are easy [ain't that the truth] and so they mate, the part, they follow her and she finds new conquests like the Spanish bullfighter even while planning to marry or spend time with one of the others.  She is on a constant quest and her inability to define the goals of her quest mean that she will continue to be unfulfilled, even though she and Jake actually are the truest if unfulfilled love relationship.

The is about Gertrude Stein's "lost generation".  A group too affluent for their own good and without a purpose.  In one telling paragraph Jake, the narrator, tells us about the Jewish Cohn.  "He had been reading W. H. Hudson.  That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread "The Purple Land."  "The Purple Land" is a very sinister book if read too late in life.  It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfectly English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described.  For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books."

Brett was Jake's "The Purple Land".
"Probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England.  I suppose she only wanted what she could not have.  Well, people were that way. To hell with people.  The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that.  Good advice anyway.  Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice.  Try and take it sometime.  Try and take it."

We are given the hint that something happened to Jake in the war that made it so he could not have sex and this meant he could not or would not take in Brett.  Yet they constantly found that they needed the touch-stone of the other's presence.

Each flawed character was searching and forgetting:
"It was amazing champagne.
"'I say that is wine,' Brett held up her glass.  'We ought to toast something. - Here's to royalty."
"'This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear.  You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that.  You lose the taste.'
"Brett's glass was empty."

In another passage the following lament seems to be an honest assessment of the people who fill the narrative:  "You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil.  You get precious.  Fake European standards have ruined you.  You drink yourself to death.  You become obsessed by sex.  You spend all your time talking, not working.  You are an expatriate, see?  You hang around cafes."

And they do.  It is a story in which the bars and cafes are equally anonymous, but are the true points of connection - the dots that outline the picture.  It is a story that does not satisfy.  It is not leading to some moral understanding or grand climax, but it is a slice of a life we can be fascinated by, but probably never be able to replicate.

enotes - introduces the book:
Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, remains, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “a romance and a guidebook.” It also became, in the words of critic Sibbie O’Sullivan, “a modern-day courtesy book on how to behave in the waste land Europe had become after the Great War.” The Sun Also Rises successfully portrays its characters as survivors of a “lost generation.” In addition, the novel was the most modern an American author had yet produced, and the ease with which it could be read endeared it to many. But for all its apparent simplicity, the novel’s innovation lay in its ironic style that interjected complex themes without being didactic. Generally, the novel is considered to be Hemingway’s most satisfying work.

Three Summer books

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a second reading occasioned by our grandsons who road out west with us.  We did it on cd and that is my favorite version - the reader is superb and creates the voices and personalities that I want to hear when I read.  We then came home and watched the movie with the Twins - their first Harry Potter experience and that was wonderful fun.

The reread was a real treat for many reasons.  Now that I know the story it was not the constant page turner, instead I could enjoy Rowling's skill.  I think the plot might overshadow the fact that she is really excellent at developing the story through characters that become very real - not just good fictional people, but people in an outrageously creative alternate world that become real.

The descriptions and details of the setting for all the books are laid out in this opening novel. The plot is fun, but thinner than the progression of dark secrets and magical battles that will follow.  This is a book that is more setting and tease.

Of course Valdemort is evil, but he will become more frightening as the series develops.  Here he is merely scary.  Snape is given his shadowy personality and Dumbledor becomes the lovable wizard.  But it is the kids who carry the story and their exploits are something all kids can relate too.

Marshes (2007) by William Burt is a gorgeous book that rides on its photographs.  There are many books that gather photos of coastal seascapes, lakes and waves, and even the dark and seemingly forbidding swamp - but marshes have not gathered the aesthetic appeal.  They are wetlands of grasses, sedge's, rushes - plants with rather dull looking flowers and the water is shaded by the denseness of the vegetation.

But Burt talks about the importance of marshes and the terrible abuse that has been visited upon them.  It is almost impossible to find a pristine marsh - they have either been ruined by construction and draining or invaded by voracious plant species that have been allowed to cross over the seas.  He describes the monster phragmites: "which grow up to 250 lateral feet per year, sending up shoots every four or five inches."

However, if you cannot be persuaded of the beauty of the marsh by words, it is his photo essays that close the deal.  The alluring and seldom seen birds of this community are shown off with clarity and focus - something that had to take tremendous patience.  The least bitterns and the rails are seldom on a birder's list, but they are on these pages.

 This is an intense book about a camp for delinquent boys that is run by a tyrannical female warden who has the boys digging holes in a dry lake bed.  Supposedly this is causing them to reform and think about their crimes.  In reality, she is using them to seek a treasure.  In this situation, our hero - Stanley Yelnats - is a victim of a wrongful conviction and a sentence to Camp Green Lake.Now Green Lake may have been the largest lake in Texas at one time, but now it is home to poisonous yellow spotted lizards and rattlesnakes and these are nicer than the guards.  It is an intense story of escape, the threads of a personal curse that cannot be shaken, and some really good story telling.  Ultimately it is about justice and redemption and the kids will be pleased with the ultimate reward that goes to the two troubled youth who come out on top.  However, I am not sure the right age for this intense book, perhaps 10?   






 

Under the Influence of Lilacs

Under the Influence of Lilacs

Deborah Gordon Cooper

This collection of poems is an interesting combination of remembering, observing the process of aging, counseling the grieving, and finding solace in nature. In her opening poem – Prelude to Daybreak – we glimpse the world that Ms. Cooper lives in  – “of waiting rooms/and penitentiaries.”  And it ends with the solace she seeks in nature “step out the door/breathe deeply in.”    The world of plants is her world, the gardener, the naturalist – “I am that half-remembered/tender-green/color of longing.”

It is poetry that releases her emotions and comforts those around her, “I read poetry/ the way someone/ somewhere else/ reads scripture.”  And she moves in a sensory world, “Leave your cell phone, your watch/ your thoughts/ on the kitchen table. “  “Walk slowly.  Leave the trail.”   And if this is autobiographical as well as philosophical we know “though I am easily/ distracted by/ a kite, caught/ in a tree” she is not without compassion and commitment to the people around her.  Nor does she lack humor, “And still, I keep catching myself/  addressing myself out loud/ as if I am my constant friend…” and I cannot give away the punch line.

Her gift to the world is her ability to capture the frustrations and fears that surround the human experience – “Let us pray that we might cease/ to plant the seeds of fear/ and hatred in their minds/ that we might never lay/ another weapon of destruction/ in their arms.”

There were poems I read to Kate because they captured her love of grandchildren Imagine and others that captured the love we share as we grow old together The Dancers.  Moving forward we also look backward and “the faces in these photographs/ become the faces of the dead/ my secret saints.”   And there are lines that are perfect in capturing a moment – “The sky is packed with/ sack-of-flour clouds.” 

She takes us to the complex places through the common place – “In a soft fold of time/ between the ironing/ and the income tax,” and reminds us that in life “We are just passing through/ these bones.”

The Reindeer Camps, Poems by Barton Sutter

This is the first of three books that Lake Superior Magazine asked me to review – three books of poetry.  So the question is – how do you review poetry?  I do not write it, I tried, when I was in college.  I made rhyming verses because my English professor said it would give me writing discipline to conform to meter and rhyme. Then Whitman set me free to ramble and I did, but prose was my medium and not just prose, but non-fiction.  So I review these tentatively as a person, who loves books and loves what great writers do with words; I explore poetry annually, digging in to great poets, which the Northland seems to produce in such wonderful abundance and quality.  I love the works of Louis Jenkins and Konnie Wanek, but judging poetry is difficult.

A poem is a picture and a rhythm – a song without music and images in abstract with words.  I have to read the first few lines over and over to discover their sound and listen to the words to get the image.  Which brings me to Barton Sutter who lives in Duluth and has become an important name in poetry with numerous awards and recognition: others have judged his merit so I can only report how I react personally to the poetry in this collection.

The poetry is compiled in sections – chapters if it was prose - and the poems are linked in a loose set of themes.  The first section examines some of darker sides of people Barton has encountered and the conditions that challenge our perspectives.  He captures the lonely frustration of dying among the candy stripers and piped in rock music: “Like earmuffs to my head, And stumbled from the house To runrun, runaway.”    He remembers the lumberman, Nils, who is moved by the discovery of a nest in a tree he has cut.  It is not the birds, but the human emotion that causes Nils to tie the tree upright to a still uncut tree in hopes the parents will return – “The frightened parents must have fled, But I like thinking how Nils tried.”

His lines are clever, often humorous and always thought provoking – “Father, Holy Ghost, and Son Were peanuts in a single shell” and we glimpse perception in lines like: “A five-year-old doesn’t judge but sees.”  We can picture the farmer, a roughhewn man who extends sympathy to a child stung by a hornet. “I see his trembling, farm-thick fingers Plastering his young son’s brow With a dripping lump of cool blue clay To take the hornet’s sting away.”

Part 2 is a reflection on a sense of place – “But nothing says north like a white pine Unless it’s a maple gone red to maroon.”  He captures the frustration I felt just the day before reading his ode on the construction on Highway 1.  We hate the fact that we can no longer see the river we crossed: “Our looks now boomerang off a blank wall, The highway turned hallway, one more Aesthetic atrocity committed, one more Beauty spot blotted out.”  Amen.  Instead he celebrates nature and the wonderful way it celebrates and supports diversity, “To work together for the great good of green.”

And we laughed as I read aloud Those Finnish Folk: “Pioneered by people awful fond of failure.”  “They believe in Sauna, Nudity, and Coffee.”  The tear jerker is an ode to his dog – those animals evolved to be our best friends and our worst hurt. 

Section three is about the Bush administration and did my liberal heart good!  Section four was filled with a collection of images and topics, but if there was a central theme I was not able to catch it.   Section five is about books and writing – an assortment of whims, loves, and relationships between reader, writer, and the printed word.  “So the years passed.  It might take him all day to write one sentence.  If he published it, by God, he meant it.”

In section six Barton explores his love of his wife, her bravery, her loveliness and her absence.  In the final poem With You in Spain you can feel the writer walking the garden daily taking in the flowers and trees that they have planted and rejoicing in their beauty while noticing that it is not the same when she is in Spain.  The introspection of this journey through time and garden ends with a soliloquy on the place that is their place and what it will be like when both are dead and someone else owns this precious place.  “I tried to tell myself When we are dead and buried It will only be As if we’ve gone to Spain.”  But it will not be that simple “Let me try to make this plain.  Imagine you had seen Apple petals drifting down Like manna on the lawn, But we were gone.”

The final section is one epic poem – Reindeer Camps – that takes us far north and puts us where we have never been and probably will never be.  It is a journey in to timelessness – it brings forth the metaphos of age and place in the barren lands of Siberia.  – “And seldom settle anywhere For longer than a month or so.  To overgraze the grass and moss Would be a grave mistake.”  There is a lesson there for all mankind and our voracious consumption. And this plain landscape is a place to reflect on human space and place – “Taiga, taiga, world of white, Home to sable, black as night, What mere human mind or eye Can take in your immensity.” 

It is an excellent collection and a philosophic poetry tinged with humor and insight. 

Raptor Almanac Scott Weidensaul

The Raptor Almanac, Scott Weidensaul

This is an excellent summary of the hawks, falcons, and vultures of the world.  It is interesting that he would include new world vultures now that we know that they are related to storks – the old world are not – but not owls.  He does acknowledge the new world vulture’s phylogenetic relationship.  But other than being a puzzle of content, the book does a thorough examination of the birds structure, habitat, behavior, lifestyles…

In addition we read some fun vignettes that keep the book from being a dry text book.  For example we learn that harriers have greater facial disks than other raptors and like owls use them for gathering sound.  However, they are not offset like the owl which makes them less accurate in judging location.  The difference is made up with the eyes.

Or we learn about a raptor pellet (the indigestible portion of a prey) that is regurgitated and in one case had the leg band from a widgeon that had been dinner.

Then there is the goshawk that was so intent that it flew in to the chicken coop with the farmer and his daughter.  The daughter dispatched it.  Another goshawk chased a chicken under a woman’s skirt.  In Mexico Kestrels follow trains to snatch up the prey that is running from the engine and red-tailed hawks follow tractors to get escaping voles.

Most raptors are solitary, but the author tells about Harris hawks that work like a wolf pack and cooperatively hunt for large prey like Jackrabbits.  And some small kites and falcons that hunt insects do work in flocks like song birds.

I am trying to picture, in my mind the idea of a Great Horned Owl laying its eggs in a Florida Eagle nest and then, both the owl and the eagle sharing the nest and sitting on their own eggs.  Too incredible.

“The lammergeier, or bearded vulture, is one of the most majestic of all diurnal raptors, with a wingspan of nearly nine feet…” “In some areas, lammergeiers have developed a taste for marrow, which they satisfy by carrying large, heavy bones aloft in their feet, then dropping them to the orcks bleow;  the vulture may go into a steep dive before releasing the bone, increasing its velocity.  When the bone smashes, the lammergeier lands and uses it specialized stiff, scoop-shaped tongue to remove the marrow.”

There are numerous charts and side notes with anecdotes for naturalists, birders, biologists.  It is easy to find the information with lots of subheadings as well as the clearly defined information in the charts. 

Cedar by Hilary Stewart

Hilary Stewart makes the relationship between the Cedar and the Northwest Coast indigenous nations come to life with this celebration of their spirit tree - living store.

"Throughout her life the newborn baby girl, born before the coming of the sailing ships from far-off lands, would rely on the magnificent cedar as an integral part of her life on the Northwest Coast.  The child would grow up to respect the cedar tree above all others, believing in its spirit and power.  She would refer to the cedar's supernatural spirit as "Long Life Maker" and "Rich Woman Maker" because it provided the necessities for a comfortable and full life."

I have read and observed how the birch tree serves the people of the Great Lakes, the Bison takes care of the people of the plains and this provides a similar - no waste, use it all, understand the species account of the trees that provide for all the materials that the people of the coast could need in their daily lives from canoes to woven mats.

But like the bison, this rich treasure is not as abundant any more.  "Great cedar trees, with clear, true grain, are becoming difficult to find as more of them succumb to the logger's saw, yet there is no other tree that can provide so generously, so totally and so beautifully."

The catalog of uses is extensive, but most impressive are all the line drawings that detail the collections and the processes used to make all the items.  This is both an anthropologist delight and a beginning how to for those who would like to revive the traditional arts.

For me the true delight is in the extensive inventory that the trees provided and the reverence for the tree itself. "In the early times, native people felt that even the sump left after felling a cedar contained life and a spirit."

Adventures on the Wine Route - Kermit Lynch

This is a book for people who like two things - wine and France.  Lynch is wine buyer with a wine shop that demands high quality wines to sell to his clientele and he makes an annual trip to France to sample, explore, and discover the right wines to buy.

It ends up being a travel log that documents many classic wine areas - describes the land and introduces the reader to fascinating wine makers and even some classic restaurants.  The wines he drinks are wines I cannot afford, but would love to taste, yet it is not the fact that these wines are out of my budget that matters - it is the discussions that he has with the wine makers, the connection he makes with the land, the cellars and caves, and the importance of the right process.

He compares the wines and challenges the reader to trust his own palate and not to be overly influenced by the wine scores.  He is not worried about the wine scores, but frustrated by them because the scores drive the industry and cause the wine makers to try to make uniform wines in the style that gets the score - not the wine that the grapes and terroir would suggest.

He sees vineyards that he had bought for years become uniform and boring.  He sees the old oak barrels replaced by glass and steel and the wine becomes a laboratory experiment instead of a unique personality. As the vineyards "modernize" he loses his sources and finds disappointments in many caves where the wine is great in the barrel and terrible in the bottle.

Because people want a wine without the sugar sands that are natural the vineyards go to bottlers who filter twice and remove the character and nose of many classic wines.

The author advises us to celebrate the diversity of the wines and vineyards to accept some fizz, some sediment, some cloudiness.  "There is so much contained in a glass of good wine.  It is a gift of nature that tastes of man's foibles, his sense of the beautiful, his idealism and virtuosity."

The book was published in 1988.

Death of a Kingfisher - M. C. Beaton

A Scottish policeman in the small town of Lochdubh has resisted promotions that would take him to the big city, preferring his highland home and landscape despite the antagonism of his supervisor.

This is a series with a number of BBC episodes based on Hamish MacBeth, a bachelor (and from the descriptions a desirable male) who lives with his too fat partner and his dog and a wild cat.

It is not a thriller detective novel and even the detection is pretty elementary in this edition, but it is breezy and filled with characters that carry the adventure along.  It begins with the death of an actual Kingfisher and as a bird watcher, that was enough to get me started.  This birds death actually sustains the first three chapters, but then people start to die - lots of them, one after the other and Hamish, despite the obstacles of his own department continues on the case.

Does he come up with the right answer?  That is for you to figure out.  Do the guilty get punished - a little.

Fun and light reading, but not a series that I would become addicted too - yet, for a summer read - go for it.